Chapter 1

Jacob

The first thought I had as I stepped
foot inside the old building was why the
fuck am I here? It had been six years since I’d attended school at Tempest
High, where the school was wealthy and the students were even wealthier. Nothing
had changed. The gates were still rusted and creaky, making everyone scared to
walk through them. The trees were still tall and gloomy, hovering over
everyone’s heads as they walked to beneath them to get to the building. The old
fixtures of the rich brick structure were still pristine and classic.

Nothing had changed, but everything had.

With my little sister by my side I
strode towards the entrance, my chin held high as I ignored the lingering looks.
I could feel the judgment burning through the back of my head but I had to
remember what was important. Curious looks didn’t qualify. Seeing out my last
year of high school did.

“Where are your friends?” Ada asked, her
hands grasped tightly around the straps of her backpack. It was a different
experience for her. She was still in primary school when we were last in the
country. Now, she was fourteen turning fifteen, held back a year due to the
unjust schooling in the country which had grown to be our home. Celti.

“Hayden said they’d meet me at break. We
have to do paperwork first,” I told her, the bell ringing to drown out my
words. It was a comfort to know I had Hayden and the other two idiots I called
friends to make the transition a little easier. Ada wasn’t so lucky.

“Yay, paperwork,” she drawled with the
sarcasm she got from spending far too much time with me.

I laughed, holding open the door to
admin for her. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

Mrs. Barden was still the head of
administration, a cringe worthy fact to note. On my last day here six years ago
we had spray painted obscenities on the floor to her office and filled it with
plastic balls we had nicked from the local play centre.

“Happy to see me, ma’am?” I smirked,
leaning against the counter. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to know I’m back for the
year. Could we please fill out our paperwork?”

“Are you going to fill my office with
plastic balls again Mr. Beck?” She asked, as if whether we could do our
paperwork was dependent upon my answer.

“No ma’am,” I said with the most serious
expression I could muster. “I grew out of going to The Playhouse.”

Ada stifled a laugh.

“Hmph,” Mrs. Barden grumbled, handing me
the paperwork never the less. I handed it to Ada, whose writing was much neater
than my scrawl. She also wouldn’t be tempted to fake it to get under Mrs.
Barden’s skin.

She handed it to me once she was done, giving
me the chance to look over it. Everything seemed in order, but I was yet to
check the emergency contact numbers. I hid my grin and handed the papers back.
Mrs. Barden gave us our class schedules and subtly gestured for us to bugger
off.

“Remind me to tell Royce and Milena that
they are our emergency contacts,” Ada said, referring to our older siblings.
Two of the five of us kids.

“How did you know?” I had to ask,
snatching her schedule so I could see where she was going. English, in the
language block. I started leading her towards the room which used to be my
English classroom.

“With the trouble you get into, you
think I’d be stupid enough to put Mutti as our contact? Vati? I don’t think so.”

“You’re much smarter than I was at your
age,” I complimented her, the halls barren bar a few young kids looking lost.

“You filled an office with plastic balls
when you were my age.”

“I was younger, actually.”

“Not by much.”

“Touche.”

We stopped outside her classroom, the
one I used to sit outside of to eat my lunch and discuss the juicy gossip of
thirteen-year-old lives. Ada took her schedule from my hands and tried to smile
at me. It faltered. She was nervous.

“You’ll do great, Ada. Just remember
everything you’ve learnt over the last few years and you’ll be fine. Good
luck.”

“Danke, Jacob. But I think you need more
luck than me.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve got this.” I just
had to act confident and even a little bit arrogant and I would make it through.

My little sister rolled her eyes and
opened the door to her class. As soon as she went I turned and walked back the
way I had come. The hallway was deserted, lockers lining the walls, sun shining
in through the windows. Classes were full of students but here, it was dead quiet.
I started to get nervous but shook the feeling away. What’s the worst that
could happen?

I strolled into the science wing and
quickly found the room. I could see through the window in the door that the
teacher had begun her lesson. She looked in her mid forties, dark graying hair
and a voice so loud it filtered through the door. It had been drilled into me
that it was rude to interrupt but I had no choice. I took a deep breath and
grasped the handle, twisting it and pushing the door open.

I stepped into the room to find it had
fallen silent, every set of eyes staring at me. My eyes roamed across the room,
scanning up and down each row of my peers. Most of them I recognized and one of
them I knew.

I swear I stopped breathing.

Gray blue eyes were staring up at me, as
wide as if she’d seen a ghost. Maybe that’s what I had become to her. Her dark
hair was dead straight down her back, dressed in plain simple shorts and a
t-shirt. She hadn’t changed a bit.

“You must be Jacob,” the teacher said,
catching my attention. I reluctantly turned my gaze to the woman, who had a
welcoming smile on her lips. “I’m Ms. Patterson. Welcome back.”

Kaia

I was sitting in psychology minding my
own business when a ghost walked in. A metaphorical ghost of course, but a
ghost none the less. He strutted into class with a smirk on his face, looking
over everyone as if he was reminiscing. It wasn’t until he locked eyes with me
that his smirk faltered.

“You must be Jacob,” Ms. Patterson said
to him, a breezy smile on her face. “I’m Ms. Patterson. Welcome back.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jacob grinned back,
his famous grin. He had changed a lot in six years, but that grin had stayed
the same.

“I’m presume you know a few people in
this room,” Ms. Patterson chuckled. “And I’m certain you don’t need an
introduction. How about you sit down in the empty seat across from William and
we can keep on with the lesson.”

“Of course,” he nodded, heading down the
aisle and sliding into the seat behind me. I didn’t know what to think. The
rumour of his return spread like wildfire on Friday afternoon, but it was only
confirmed last night when someone saw him and his family out for dinner. That
circulated the gossip chain, a more popular item than Saturday’s party dramas
and details or the teen pregnancy scare of relay runner Paula Wilfried.

“As I was saying. You’ve chosen this
class as one of your six subjects for year twelve, meaning you all have at
least a slight interest for it. I hope for your sake that’s true, because you
will find it difficult if you don’t. That being said, it’s Monday morning on
the first day of school and no one wants to be here, so I’m going to put on a
video that will see us through to the end of the lesson.”

The class erupted into cheers and Ms.
Patterson turned off the lights. A minute later, the projector flickered to
life and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest started
to play. I cringed. At the end of primary school Hayden Porter had a movie
night with about fifteen of us graduates there. It was the last movie we
watched and I was forever scarred from it.

So instead, I got my book from inside my
folder and read it under the table. At least I tried to read it. I got to the
stage where I had read one sentence ten times and still could not process it. A
question was overbearing the sentence in my head, focusing on the very grown up
boy sitting behind me.

Where had
he been?

He didn’t leave quietly, but he didn’t
tell anyone where he was going. From the slight accent he’d acquired, I could
guess it was somewhere in Europe. But what was he doing there, and why was he
back?

The bell rang to signal the end of first
period so everyone began to pack up their books, teacher included.

“We’ll watch the rest of that tomorrow
and write up our first analysis.”

We were dismissed.

Parker was standing outside the door,
waiting for me with a bored expression. She was my polar opposite, my sister,
my best friend. She glanced up when I came out, but her gaze moved past me to
the person following. From the widening of her eyes I knew it was Jacob.

I couldn’t deny myself a look and when I
did, his eyes were on me. I thought he was going to talk to me, but he just let
out a low chuckle as if saying like hell
I would talk to you and walked right past. Of course, he wouldn’t want to
talk to me. Why should I have thought otherwise? Six years is a lot of time to
change, and from what I’d heard he hadn’t been a good boy.

“So the rumours were true,” Parker
sighed, pushing off the wall. We fell into step and headed to our next class,
pushing against the current of students trying to do the same.

“Do you really doubt the rumour mill?
When has it ever lied?” I drawled, causing Parker to laugh, flicking one of her
shoulder length braids over her shoulder.

“When it said you and Marcus broke up
because he slept with me?” She phrased it as a question.

“How could I forget?” About a month ago
it was rumoured that Marcus was cheating on me with my sister. I was right not
to believe it, with both Marcus and Parker quick to assure me it didn’t happen.

“You’re going out with him tonight,
aren’t you?” She clarified, stopping by the door of our English class where
little year eights were filing out. They looked so ready for school with their
freshly pressed clothes and neatly styled hair. I gave it a week for all of
that to be gone. Maybe a month. Everyone put more effort into their appearance
in younger years, especially at the start of term.

I nodded, my eyes catching sight of a
brunette with striking familiarity. I knew her, but I couldn’t put my finger on
how.

“Speak of the devil,” Parker mumbled,
walking into the now empty classroom. An arm was slung around my shoulders as
my boyfriend kissed my forehead.

“Talking about me again, are we?” He
asked, walking with me into our English classroom.

“Less and less every day,” I told him,
relieved when he laughed, taking it as a joke rather than a fact. We’d been
dating for six months now, two months too long. The more time I spent with him
the more I questioned how I’d ended up with him in the first place. Tonight was
the night I was going to break up with him.

“So what are we doing tonight, babe?” He
fell into the seat across from me, my sister on the other side. She didn’t try
to cover her laugh as I rolled my eyes. I hated pet names.

“I was just thinking I could come over
after school for a bit. I’ve got dinner with my family so I can’t stay long.”

I stopped. I knew too well that family
wouldn’t always be there. Natural disasters happen. Accidents happen. There’s
always a chance you’ll wake up one day and your family will be gone.

“I can’t get out of it. Sorry.” I did my
best to be polite when it was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to scream
that he had no idea how important family was, how lucky he was to still have a
functioning one. But I bit my tongue, on the hopes it would make tonight a
little smoother.

The class was almost full as Parker
handed me a note, torn out of the back of her binder.

I hate to
say I told you so. What a jerk.

I sighed, nodding in agreement. He was a
jerk. At least after tonight, he wouldn’t be my jerk.

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